I don't own Bruce Wayne, Clark Kent, Lucius Fox, Alfred Pennyworth, Dr. Leslie Thomkins, or the members of the Legion of Superheroes. I do own the African characters seen here. :)

Please read and enjoy.

He stepped off the plane weary from flying it across the Atlantic. His weariness was lifted partially, when he heard his name called.

"Lucius!"

He looked up and grinned. The smile on her dark face and the bright colors of her yellow blouse and red skirt swirled into his vision and then under it as she embraced him. He hugged her back. "Good to see you too! You've grown big."

She took a step back and looked up into his face mock-scowling. Her voice cracked with a just a tinge of anger from a long frustration softened by exasperated love. "I've 'been' big for a long while, wise-man!"

Then her attention fastened to the man behind him. "And you must be the reporter, Mr. Kent."

"I am."

Lucius turned to watch the African woman and all-American (as he had learned on the long flight) man shake hands. Then hers pulled away to cover her mouth with its twin. Her eyes filled with water as she stared up the steps at the young men standing at there top looking down at them. Her hands flew down again as she gasped. "Boys! Luke!"

Luke gave a gentle smile. She hurried up the steps to them. She paused momentarily watching them, before her grin grew again. She took Luke by the wrist, turned and began to tug him down the stairs. "Come! Come, come, come! Since Bruce called us from America, we have been preparing! Your parents are at the school, Luke!"

Luke almost stumbled on the stairs and collided with her back, his face going blank and body lax. Lucius wondered if the fifteen year old might faint. Amita turned again to address the tallest boy over his shoulder. "We're still trying to contact your family Amos. We think we have a few leads."

Amos nodded gravely. Lucius saw no hint of disbelief in the teen's expression. After countless business meetings, Lucius thought he ought to know when he saw such an expression.

James and Judah did not have any family members to gather that he knew of, and Judah was scowling, but the other boy asked. "Is there a football field where we are going?"

Amita turned and gave him a million dollar smile. "A big, beautiful field, with new goals and balls."

James gave a like million dollar smile back at her. "Let us go there then!"

. . .

Blonde hair, pink eyes, a gentle smile and even gentler prodding of his mind. His determined, mental wall of indifference and threat combined. Finally, a grudging liking for her sincere questioning and light touch when he was battle weary or injured, the way she always made it a private conversation once she realized that made him more honest.

A rotund body, wide eyes, and brash voice. Questions flying at him like tennis balls from a machine. Rings of metal, whirs of machines. A dawning realization he was enjoying himself when they shared work-space and projects together, and careful attempt to even more gradually let it show.

Bright, excited battle cries and three identical forms coming at him from three sides. Dodging, blocking, a sparring challenge unlike any other. The sound of backs hitting a floor possessing just enough firmness, more than enough give. It seemed to bounce you back up when you fell. A wide smile and eager, alert eyes taking in his every move or lack thereof. "Want to go again?"

Grey eyes, long, sweeping black hair a most unusual sensation on his skin as the air pressure shifted around her. A sniff, a chin tilted up, drooping eyelashes as she looked down, and then in private ... quiet confessions. A few lessons in weapons wielding for a fellow rich-kid, who didn't want her "untouchability" to be her only resource in a fight.

A firm jaw, narrowed blue eyes, jagged scar, a look, he knew from his own reflection, staring him down. Terse commands blaring through his ears. Blue lightning in the corner of his vision. A leader he had come to trust.

A red cape flapping. Blue eyes meeting his open and eager for a new day. A whoosh of air as a body like a missile flew past him. A chipper question. "Hey Bruce want to join?" A stubborn alien he had more in common with than their hosts even though they were almost nothing alike. Well, as someone said they had common values, but different worldviews, though they both came from the same world unlike the others. However, those others had still made a cohesive team years before they arrived. They'd just recently been added on. His fellow, new recruit was so eager to belong and make friends with them. He was so eager to leave.

And then those red eyes, blue face, metallic voice staring up at or speaking to him. "You are going to be great, sad, but great." The thing, or person, whichever it was, though it, or he, knew his future.

What if this was all a great game, a scam, a long play? What if he had to pull Clark out of here? Would the alien even go?

"Master Bruce, Master Bruce?"

He opened his eyes. Alfred stared down at him, eyes focused, mustache bristling. "You were tossing in your sleep."

Bruce closed his eyes and released a puff of breath with his reply. "Oh ..." He should have known seeing Clark again would bring all those memories, concerns to his subconscious if nothing else.

Bruce sat up and stretched his arms, rolled his neck gently, closed his eyes in thought. Aunt Leslie would probably say the dreams were due to unprocessed emotions from that time period. Their little adventure together had ended rather abruptly.

"Take me home, Bruce ... Please ... take me home."

Remembering the last lucid thought in his dream, which was really just a swirl of images and thoughts, and yes, "feelings" from that time, Bruce winced. How he wished now he'd had to drag the super-powered being home kicking and screaming and digging his titanium strength fingernails into those future-alloy floors. The memory of their smell had almost been in his dream too. Almost ... Everything there had smelled different from here he recalled, a truly alien environment.

Bruce opened his eyes and glanced over the cave beneath the mansion breathing in its scents of moisture, stone, and cleaning supplies now. "I was having a memory-dream."

"Anything you'd like to talk about, Sir?"

Bruce shook his head. "No."

He swung his feet over the side of the cot and paused when he noticed the rigidness in his butler's stance and way his gaze was boring into the floor. He looked up and went rigid himself. "What happened?"

Alfred raised his gaze and it dug into him. "How do you know, Clark Kent, Sir?"

Bruce's shoulders fell. Maybe this hadn't been a good idea getting Clark involved. Maybe if he'd had more time, he would have thought of something else. He looked down at his feet. "Alfred, answering that question would mean telling secrets that aren't mine to tell. Please don't ask me again."

"Master Bruce ..." Bruce partially lifted his head and let his tightness melt a bit at that soft tone. "The only time we were apart, I didn't get regular updates about you, was that long stint, in the desert."

Bruce froze and very carefully "did not" react. That wasn't quite true. Alfred, Leslie, and Lucius would not know it though ...

Alfred continued so maybe he had not noticed being engaged in trying to say whatever he felt he had to. Shame crept through Bruce at his godfather's words. "You ... were not very happy upon your return from there ... or like yourself."

Bruce gave a jerked nod of understanding, hoping his relaxed posture would make up for not meeting his butler's eyes. "It wasn't in that desert I met Clark, Alfred, far from it. It was under a very different circumstance, an engagement we were both in I don't regret." He paused as he realized how much he really meant that. Indeed, Alfred's raised eyebrows seemed to show he was too.

"You don't?"

Bruce shook his head and stood up. "No, I don't."

He had been part of a team of people close to his own age. His guardians would have been thrilled if not for the deadly predicaments they'd all been in so consistently. He'd actually managed to be "friends" with the others too, more or less, more than he'd been with almost any others thus far. And he couldn't tell, for though it was a secret of his, it was not just his secret. Besides he could barely keep all he learned from overly affecting his here and now as it was.

What do you think?

God Bless

ScribeofHeroes